Joseph Haydn
Servant and Master

Written for and dedicated to
the
RADIO MEMBERS
of
THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY
of NEW YORK

Copyright 1950
THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY
of NEW YORK
113 West 57th Street
New York 19. N. Y.

Haydn at 33, in the gold embroidered uniform of the Eszterházys.

FOREWORD

In this sketchy and unpretentious booklet the reader must not expect to find any thoroughgoing or penetrating discussion of Haydn’s works or, for that matter, more than a hasty and superficial account of his career. Haydn wrote an appalling quantity of music, some of which has to this day not been finally catalogued. In a pamphlet of this brief and unoriginal sort the reader will look in vain for anything more than the titles of a handful of compositions. About the vast number of symphonies, the magnificent string quartets, the clavier works, the songs there can here be no question. Nor can one do more than allude to a few of the stage pieces though these operas, composed for the most part for the festivities arranged by the Eszterházy princes, do not pretend to fill a role in the history of the lyric drama comparable to those of Mozart or even to the intermezzi and the buffas of the 18th Century Italians or the Singspiele of men like Dittorsdorf and Hiller. Neither is there room to consider the technical advancements achieved by Haydn in the sonata or symphonic form. Yet, even a rapid glance through the following pages will, none the less, make it clear that Haydn, barring a few hardships in his youth, lived an extraordinarily fortunate life and had abundant reason for the optimism which marked every step of his progress. Not even Mendelssohn was so unendingly lucky, whether in his spiritual constitution or in his year by year experiences. That Haydn was a master by the grace of Heaven and a servant only by the artificial conventions of a temporary social order must become clear to anyone who follows his amazing development in the biography of Pohl and Botstiber, or the briefer but no less deeply perceptive accounts of a scholar like Dr. Karl Geiringer, on whose writings and analyses the present little account is chiefly based.

H. F. P.

JOSEPH HAYDN
Servant and Master

By
HERBERT F. PEYSER

When Mendelssohn first heard Haydn’s “Grand Organ Mass” he found it “scandalously merry.” Now, this work, composed at Eszterháza in 1766, was by no means a mature effort and it might have been reasonable to ascribe its exuberance to the high spirits of a young man of uncommonly slow artistic development. But the fact is that, virtually to the end of his days, Haydn did not outgrow a joyfulness rooted in an unfaltering optimism of soul. This is not to say that his creative inspiration and originality did not enormously deepen and ramify and, particularly in his later years, foreshadow in startling fashion some of the most influential romantic devices of the nineteenth century. Yet his heart preserved unchanged that serene geniality of his youth. As much as anything else his churchly compositions disclose this trait, and even his later masses are distinguished by a good deal of that “merriment” which shocked Mendelssohn and not a few others.

“I don’t know how to do it otherwise,” he once told his friend, the poet Carpani, when the question of his treatment of the mass came up. “I have to give what is in me! When I think of God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes fly from me as from a spindle. And as God has given me a joyful heart He will surely pardon me if I serve Him cheerfully!” With these words he set about revising that selfsame “scandalously jolly” Mass of 1766, making it even more “scandalous” by the addition of some cheery wind instrument parts. Having finished a work and signed it, he would almost unfailingly add a pious inscription, such as “Soli Deo Gloria”, “Laus Deo” or “In Nomine Domini”.

One of the outstanding authorities on Haydn today, Dr. Karl Geiringer, alludes to the “deep religious sense, stubborn tenacity of purpose and a passionate desire to rise in the world” as qualities which could be found in all Haydn’s ancestors, “combined with a great pride in good craftsmanship, a warm love of the soil and a healthy streak of sensuality.” Certainly, his boyhood was not calculated to make of him an incorrigible optimist had not this quality been bred in his bones. Rohrau, the little town in which he was born, is an unattractive place in a flat and marshy country, where the frequently overflowing Leitha River forms a border between Austria and Hungary. The houses are low, built of clay and roofed with thatch, which often catches fire in the hot, dry summers. Dr. Geiringer tells that Haydn’s house was burned in 1813, 1833 and 1899, but always restored so carefully that few but specialists could tell the difference. The place was probably no worse than other neighboring cottages and farms; yet we are told that Beethoven, in his last illness, being shown a picture of it, exclaimed: “To think that such a great man should have been born in so poor a home!” while some years later, Liszt, on catching sight of it, burst into tears.

Haydn’s birthplace at Rohrau-on-the-Leitha, on the Austro-Hungarian border.

Haydn’s father, Mathias Haydn, was born in the nearby town of Hainburg; his antecedents were hard-working, honest men, farmers, vinegrowers, millers, wheel-wrights. Of musicians or artists there was not one among them. Mathias was a wheel-wright and wagon-builder, like his forebears. When he finished his apprenticeship he set out on a trip, after the tradition of a journeyman, and went, we are told, as far as Frankfurt-on-the-Main. On his wanderings he bought himself a harp. Someone taught him to play it (he could not read a note of music) sufficiently to accompany himself in his favorite folk-tunes, which he sang “in a pleasant tenor voice”. In 1727 he settled in Rohrau, though he remained a member of the Hainburg guild of wheel-wrights. It is possible that he chose the unattractive market town in place of the more imposing and picturesque Hainburg because Maria Koller lived in Rohrau. Maria was a cook in the employ of the Counts of Harrach, the lords of Rohrau. She appears to have been a clever culinary artist (Dr. Geiringer says she “had to handle such delicacies as turtles and crayfish and had an abundance of material at her disposal.” We are told for example, that something like 8000 eggs, 200 capons and 300 chickens were delivered annually to the castle by the inhabitants of Rohrau as part of their duties to their patron.) At any rate, in 1728, she married the wagon-maker, Mathias Haydn, and brought her husband a dowry of 120 florins and an “honest outfit.” The couple was by no means what could be called “poor” (in spite of Beethoven’s pathetic exclamation and Liszt’s tears!), but Maria